Teaching Philosophy

It
is my aim as a teacher to use the classroom to facilitate the development of
students as scientists, in terms of their science process skills, ability to
deal with broad questions and dialoguing with other scientists., These skills
can be incredibly valuable whatever career path students take, as well as
helping them make informed opinions as world citizens.

I
focus on teaching scientific process skills, as well as content, in my courses.
When I think of the best classes that I took, I describe them as, “The class
where I really learned how to…” rather than a class where I learned about
something. I try to achieve this by thinking of students as scientists and
assessing what skills they need help with. In practice, this means that I give
students many opportunities in class to do things like generate a hypothesis,
plan an experiment, interpret data and draw conclusions. For example, an
activity I have used with students and in teaching workshops is having groups
plan what the next experiment would be, after reading a paper. I have groups of
students formulate a graph with hypothetical data supporting their hypothesis,
and groups then exchange graphs only and try to infer what the hypothesis was.
Does the graph actually show that? Whether with undergraduates or a group of
professional scientists, this activity generates a high level of engagement,
discussion and learning. I find that this is time well spent, since it is
fascinating seeing students’ scientific abilities improve throughout the course
of the semester. Students really respond to this approach; one student
commented, “I like the ant bird assignment because
we got to design our own experiment. I really felt like a scientist.”

I
believe that it is important to challenge students with significant questions,
both to capture their interest and teach that science is a process. I find that
students are often more interested in difficult, real-world problems that may
not have a complete answer than in simplified textbook type problems, and
engaging students’ interest is the best way to tap into what they can do. My
aim is to help students see that they capable of at least partially answering
such difficult questions. My most effective physics professor taught by giving
a series of questions, each of which we could already answer, which lead us to
the solution of a difficult problem we thought we couldn’t answer. After
frequent repetition of this process in my own teaching, I have seen students
learn to break down hard questions to help themselves and other group members.
For example, I watched one of my students apply the same series of question
technique to teach her group members to predict the outcome of competition
using graphical models. I have also been very impressed to have students
relatively quickly push an idea to its known boundaries and start asking
questions that we don’t have answers to, in the process poking gaping holes in
existing ideas. This approach of asking
significant questions also helps students recognize that science is an ongoing
process, rather than a list of things to be memorized.

I
use student assessment to teach how science involves responding and
incorporating feedback from others. We have students’ close attention when we
communicate grades, making it a very teachable moment. Why do we so seldom ask
them to revise their answers, to see whether they understand and can
incorporate our feedback about what was lacking? As scientists, we are always
changing and improving scientific methods, analysis and manuscripts based on
feedback and new information from others. I have seen students also benefit
tremendously from this process.For
example, I emphasize meeting with students to discuss their results on major
written assignments. Through these discussions, I have been amazed to learn how
often they actually understood the concepts and had simply not communicated
their ideas well. In these student meetings, which mimic the feedback
scientific collaborators give each other on manuscripts, I am able to discuss
with students how their writing did not adequately express their knowledge, and
work with them on how to improve. The next assignment is for them to
incorporate these changes effectively into the same document. In my experience,
it is worthwhile to have fewer writing assignments but more feedback and
revisions to facilitate more skill development. This whole process, which is
analogous to the process by which scientific papers are reviewed, allows
students to achieve a high standard of communication.

Given
this approach to teaching, I expect students to improve in three ways from my
classes: learning the practical skills of the scientist, breaking down
difficult questions into parts they can work with and effective communication and
collaboration with others. It is both challenging and exciting to strive to
improve my ability to foster student’s development in these critical areas.